just an update

Hi Everyone!

I don't have time or energy to add pictures to this post, I just thought I'd do a quick little update since its been a while since I have posted.

We just got back yesterday from a week vacation with Jeremy's entire family.  I am so happy to be home.  It was fun to go and I think Jeremy's mom was happy to have everyone there, but before we left for the trip, Jeremy said, "What do you think the family blow-up will be this time?"  I laughed and just told him to keep his mouth shut around his brothers and probably no arguments would happen.

Well, there was basically some sort of argument/family drama event every single night.  I got so little sleep some of the nights because of this, and we spent a lot of our time waiting around for people because half of his siblings don't really understand what it means to be somewhere at a certain time and are not considerate of people who are ON TIME.  Then they get mad at us because we didn't want to wait with our children for (i am not exaggerating) over an hour in 80-90 degree weather while they finally made it to wherever we were going.

Yeah.

So I'm happy to be home.

We did do some fun things, though.  We walked through the Lava Caves (almost 2 miles in the dark) and climbed Smith Rock (I carried Hailey almost the entire way, 2 and 1/3 mile over and then back again), and went to different parks for the kids to play.  The resort we stayed at had an awesome kiddie splash park and pool area, Hailey LOVED the water and wanted to swim all day.

The week before we went on a trip to the oregon coast with my sister and her husband, and that was awesome.  We spent all of our time outside on the beach, the kids proved to be awesome travelers (did great in the car and slept fine any where we put them) and it was really refreshing.  I have a bunch of pictures up on my blog from that trip if you want to see them. (http://beccaellis.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/oregon-coast-trip/)  Also, as soon as we got back from that trip, we had VBS up at the church and I taught the 4-5 year olds (although I also had a few 2 and 3 year olds, also).  It was fun, but I was exhausted at the end of the week and then had to pack up again for Oregon.

Shea starts up at his new preschool (here in Indianola) in a few weeks and I'm taking online classes again this quarter.  Also, I don't think I have shared anything about this, but I recently bought a new camera and I have connected with a doula in the area who I will be working with to offer free birth photography in exchange for experience at births and to build my portfolio.  I am super excited about this and have potentially 4 births from now through December that I could be at, including my sister's.  I also am doing a young woman we knew from Port Orchard (she was one of the teens we were working with when we lived there) who is pregnant and I am doing her maternity pictures in November.

Anyway, thats it for now.  I was finishing up a post on my blog for a local farm to table cafe I went and pictures for, and now I am ready to go to bed!  Jeremy is up watching the Huskies game with his parents, but Hailey is coming down with a cold and I think I am fighting it off, too.  I am so thankful Jeremy is off until Tuesday and we have nothing planned all weekend.

Busy couple of weeks

I worked 3 days out of an 8 day period, had two friends move from rentals to their first homes, my boy had/has croup, and sleeping through the night turned into waking twice a night while sick. 

The times when I think I would be getting grumpy I just think "this is motherhood, you will miss this, enjoy the moment".  When I don't feel like I can do it alone, and Paul is at work, I text a friend and get together. Chores can wait, sometimes just hanging out and enjoying the moment changes a downer day into one of the best days.  Eli is a social baby and is usually better when hanging out with people.  Oh and I am definitely getting him accustomed to taking naps anywhere and everywhere! 

My boy loves zucchini!  He chews all the meat off and just leaves the skin. Proud mama moment. 

 I have been wanting to go on a motorcycle ride on Paul's new bike since he wouldn't take me when I was pregnant.  It only took us 7 months but we took a half hour ride together while grandma and grandpa watched Eli.  I had worked that day and was tired, but it was so fun to get out and about with Paul!

Eli loves hanging out with our friends who have a little girl, Meli who is 4 months old.  They love each other, she stares at him and smiles, he grabs her foot, repeat, and repeat. It's adorable!

Eli and I went to help his other buddy Isaac and his mama pack up to move (they move today actually) and they have baby jail. I am a huge fan of baby jail!  I wish they had a portable one I could take everywhere with me to all the places I go that aren't babyproofed! 

Eli gets so excited when he sees me eating. He crawls over all excited like and super fast and stares and climbs on me till I give him a bite.  Baby led weaning at its finest. 

Since Eli had croup I hadn't been going swimming because I had decided to take him to the gym daycare, but didn't want to start him there while he was all mucousy and coughy. I finally get my booty there and the pool is closed!  So I swung into costco for some bread and ended up with this sweet outfit for Eli. Jeggins, camo vest, and a long sleeved grey onesie that isn't pictured. 

I made my own almond butter for the first time!  I am going to make peanut butter next.  Why oh why haven't I done this before? It is so easy.  Roast almonds, let cool a bit, put in food processor for about 7 minutes, add a pinch of salt and incorporate and voila, almond butter. 

This boy is going to keep me on my toys, he is already a dare devil at 7 months old. I can't wait till he can wheel himself around on this thing! :) 

Getting into the groove

I don't know why it took me so long to have Eli put himself down for naps. I just had to let him cry and go in every 10-15 minutes and now he puts himself down for nearly every nap. I used to nurse him down but lately he is awake through most of if not all of nursing. Or if he falls asleep he wakes right up. Anyway, he was skipping every single nap when meant there was a crazy mommy and crazy baby in the house. So I started leaving him in the crib for what should constitute a nap and he started falling asleep on his own. Win win. We are both way happier, and this has been going on for weeks now. I am also finally finding time to get things done around the house!  I found this grout paint that makes your grout look a million times better, like new really. I spent 3 solid days of nap times redoing all of our grout. I have gorgeous tile and very bruised knees to show for it. I also secured the rest of the tippable furniture to the wall today.  I have also started vacuuming every other day downstairs because I know a little boy who likes to crawl everywhere, and some cats who like to track litter everywhere. I am loving my house more and more now that I have been making these small changes. I also cleaned our shower doors with something called bio-clean. I can't remember if I mentioned this before but it is magical. Add a little (kinda a lot) of elbow grease and my shower doors look brand new, no more hard water stains that are 10 years old! 

I have no smooth transition. Straight to baby talk.  Eli has been semi approving of books more these days. He often wants to just chew on them and is not interested in me reading anything, but crawling and clinmbing, those are his favorites and he does it all day every day! 

My mom got me this awesome "my mom snaps" book as part of my birthday gift. It's all about the daily activities a kid is doing and how the mama snaps pictures all day long. I LOVE it! 

Eli got to meet my friends 4 week old niece. She was so sweet. It's crazy how fast you can forget how cuddly and sweet little ones are. I absolutely loved that stage but this stage is way more fun, that stage was sweet :) .

Paul and I went on our first childless date day and it was amazing. We still bought Eli some stuff but mainly we  went bike shopping to 3 different stores and did research. Then we went to lunch, got my free starbucks bday coffee and then walked 3 miles around greenlake in some amazing weather. It was a much needed 5.5 hour date while grandma watched Eli. And we got to see the blue angels because it was Seafair! 

Eli loved his first taste of vine fresh blackberries! There are lots of places close to home that have blackberries free for the picking. I made my first freezer jam with them!  

I had to go get a filling and a cleaning at the dentist and it turned into a 1.75 hour visit because of insurance logistics and stuff. This kind of thing would have annoyed me pre baby but I just enjoyed the time alone watching the news and fiddling on my phone while waiting for things!  I also didn't need to get numbed at all because the fillings were so small, which was awesome! I would way rather have them fixed now than in a few years when they are awful! 

My mother in law made me an awesome fruit tart for my bday, and the Celebrate is my favorite event additive I got from lisa leonard designs when she was having a sale :) 

My boy loves the bath, we take one every night almost even though he showers with me in the morning. 

My birthday bike with my main man! 

Amber teething necklace please work! 

Eli unfortunately caught his first cold (or has really bad teething congestion) and he is hating the nose frieda.  I have a humidifier running in his room and he has been napping more than ususal. Still just teeth buds and no teeth, which is fine by me. Love this little dude and hope he feels better soon. 

Not much news

Hello!  Not that much to report -

We went to Spain.  My Expert Sinner blog has all the details and a link to the photos if you haven't already seen them.

We received a bunch of info on that girl we were interested in adopting, and now the ball is in our court to decide if we want to continue pursuing her.  Oddly though, the social worker hasn't even looked at our homestudy, so it seems premature to send us this girl's entire life story and list of problems.  Very personal and private information to send to a couple when you haven't even read their homestudy.  But I guess they trust that we went through the licensing process so we must be all right?  Not sure.  Right now I'm waiting for Joe to decide whether to move forward or not so I can contact the social worker, at which point they will review our homestudy.  If they like us, then they'll bring the girl on board.  If she likes us, then she'll live in our home as a foster-adopt, and when it is determined she's a good fit, we'll adopt.  That is a lot of "ifs!"  The big "if" right now is Joe, who honestly hasn't been responding to my efforts to talk about it.

I think we may have found a home church. Faith Baptist in Kent.  A lot of families who used to go to FEPC go there now.  I am really excited to get involved.  I have missed being plugged in, especially since our Bible study ended.

I'm really frustrated with my inability to drive because I am bored out of my mind.  There are so many opportunities for ministry and social-ness that are out of reach.  Joe has off-and-on been researching cars for me because he wants to get rid of the Mazda...but we have different opinions about what car to get (I want heated seats for my legs and he says absolutely not; he wants to buy a truck in addition to a new car and I say absolutely not...).  And after we get the car we still have to get the hand controls, which also requires me to take some classes and, I believe, to retake the driving test.  It seems so far away!  As of next month it will be a year since I'll have driven.  September 17 last year was when we went to the ER because I woke up and couldn't walk.  It was after that I decided to stop driving.  November 1 I was diagnosed.  December 1 I started the medication.  I just remember all these dates because it was such a big change in my life.

I've plateau'd in physical therapy so my last session is next week.  Too bad my 2x/week sessions were the highlight of my week because, PEOPLE.  But I've really thrown myself into my home PT routine and I'm noticing a difference in my leg strength!  My main problem with doing it at home was, I'd try to do all my exercises at once and then I'd get woozy and headachy and blurry vision and I'd push through it so I could check it off.  But I made a check list where I do a couple sets and then I have to take at least a 5 minute break.  And I've learned to allow myself to stop in the middle of an exercise *as soon as* I start feeling weird.

I started grating my Fels Naptha on the smallest grater for laundry soap because I was getting tired of the little grated pieces mixed in with the powdered washing soda and borax.  It made a great powder, but it took forever and I was breathing it in and stuff.  So I looked up "How to avoid grating soap" and found this.  I have not tried it yet but I plan to.  I also started putting the soap through a sieve to make it pure powder!  I love it even more now!  And I'm pretty sure it'll dissolve in cold water, being so fine.

That's all I can think of.  Toodleoo!